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Techniques for measuring the level of milking vacuum are presented and discussed with reference to the specifications given in ISO Standard 5707 and ASABE standard S518. Common measurement and interpretation errors are illustrated in this paper along. Milking-time tests of average claw vacuum were shown to compare well to wet-tests (done with a milk flow simulator). Knowledge of simultaneous milk flow rate, either by using a flow simulator with a known flow rate or by estimating milk flow rate using milk meters improves predictive ability and can provide better information from measurements made on fewer cows. The wet tests provide a more accurate assessment of differences between system configurations because the liquid flow rate is more precisely known and the cow-to-cow variation is eliminated.